D&D 5E What am I missing?

[Warrior Poet]

I actually have an easier time imagine stunning a construct than I do a ghost. Walk across a bridge with enough people at just the right cadence and you can get it to ripple, bounce, or even collapse. I could see a strike that rattled the infrastructure of a construct so severely that it resonated in a way that inhibited movement, or limited actions, or what-have-you.

But, as others have noted—and for D&D, I think this generally applies—at a certain point, if you think about it too much, you risk driving yourself up the wall with logical pursuit of how the world works. Sometimes you just have to say "It's magic!" in order to allow the game to help you tell the story you're trying to tell.

Still learning,

Rober

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Tony Vargas]

Am I missing something?

Nothing in the rules. But, you can always rule that a monster can't be stunned. Just consider the written rule (or lack thereof) an oversight. If you don't like doing it on the fly, audit and re-write monsters before you use them to add in all the immunities you feel they should have.

(OTOH, the Monk's Ki is explicitly magical in 5e, and magic traditionally gets a free pass in D&D.)

So, what ever works for you & your table.

The easiest, perhaps, is to simply apply the RAW. It's a game, and you play it by the rules.

That's as easy/good a way to do it as the rules of the game are functional (clear/consistent/balanced/etd) and the group is committed to using them consistently. So in 4e or 3e respectively, good idea. If you were to decide a golem couldn't be stunned in those cases, you should probably have done so explicitly when statting it out.

The other easy way to approach it is just to let the DM make the rulings based on common sense.

Best way to go in 5e, which leaves opportunities for rulings on every action, anyway. Just keep in mind fun (and as much 'balance' as your group needs to support it's fun) as well as common sense (let's face it: 'realism' in a fantasy game).

 

[aco175]

I have a similar problem with the bard taunting a skeleton since it is not immune to psychic damage. I tend to just go with it and think that it will average out in the end, going for the players sometimes and against them other times.

 

[The Old Crow]

I am stunned as well.

It sort of makes sense that maybe an attack was so devastating that the construct energy flow was disrupted or it was staggered...and maybe the ghost's grip on this plane was disrupted for a moment.

I like this. If a construct gets whacked really hard, why shouldn't there be a possibility of it being disrupted momentarily? The magic of both the construct and the ghost still need to interact with the physical world, so even if one assumes that magic is perfect, it is quite possible that the points where it touches reality are not, or the points can be made imperfect.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I have a general rule that applies to this situation:

As a DM, don't think of things in terms of "here are reasons why that shouldn't work". Think only in terms of "here is at least one reason why it is cool that does work."

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I had a similar head scratching experience with my wizard. We were making our escape away from a horde of oozes and I threw down a Web in a choke point. I mostly did it for the difficult terrain aspect as I thought that their fluid-like nature would render them immune to being held in place by them. But it turns out that oozes aren't immune to the restrained condition. It's easy to just say "It's magic, I ain't gotta explain anything" but it was still a bit weird.

On the other hand, adding a condition immunity to a monster is officially a no-CR-adjustment "free" change, according to the DMG. So don't be surprised if your DM's oozes (and zombies, and ghosts, and demons) differ from MM oozes.

 

[Warrior Poet]

Think in terms of "here is at least one reason why it is cool that does work."

For example, in re: ghosts

Some classic folklores posit ghosts as spirits that died before completing some earthly task or goal, or that died with a powerful need to exact some kind of revenge (Hamlet's father, for example).

In both of these approaches, there is a strong psychological component to what it means to be a ghost: something unfulfilled, some injustice uncorrected. So, if the ghost encounters a monk, and the monk brings battle, it might resonate with the ghost that something is further attempting to hinder accomplishment of the unfinished or standing in the way of vengeance. This is a significant psychological blow to why the ghost is there in the first place. So maybe the stunning effect is a moment of psychological turmoil: "I can't believe this person is getting in the way of sending my love one last message/telling my son that my brother and wife poisoned me!"

Uh . . . also, spoilers for Hamlet. Sorry about that.

But, when all else fails: <jazz hands> "It's magic!" </jazz hands>

Still learning,

Robert

 

[Lidgar]

I agree with AoB, get creative and have fun:

Construct: Your strike impacts the very magic holding the construct together, causing it to be "stunned".

Ghost: Your strike concusses the the interface between the material and the ethereal, causing the ghost to momentary lose its ability to act.

 

[BoldItalic]

You can easily cover it with a suitable narrative. Indeed, you can cover almost anything the game mechanics throw up with a suitable narrative.

Eric the Headless was bemused by the diminutive figure of the robed halfling who had broken into his tomb. The traditional moaning and phasing in and out of visibility that usually worked to get rid of annoying mortals didn't seem to work on this one. On the contrary, the monk kept trying to whack him with a wooden staff. It felt vaguely personal when the staff went through him; it didn't tickle or anything, it just felt, well, a bit rude. For a few moments, Eric was at a loss what to do. He didn't want to hurt the little monk, he just wanted to be left alone. "Ah well," he thought, "I'll do nothing at all and see who gets bored first."